7/2/06 – Cirque Mountain – West Ridge

4.5 miles, 2780'


go back to Teakettle Mountain

When we woke this morning, it was calming not to be thinking about Dallas Peak. We needed a flower hike instead, and Cirque Mountain, one of the easiest peaks to climb in the Sneffels Range, sounded perfect. From Ouray we made the familiar drive into Yankee Boy Basin, and parked at the same spot we used for Teakettle the day before. When we started hiking, we noticed a guy who seemed to be waiting for us. "Which way to Sneffels?" he asked, and since we were going his way for a mile or so, we invited him to come along with us. We talked for a while, sharing mountaineering stories before it came to light that we were both SummitPost members. Very cool! Steve is working on the Highest 100 list, and I especially liked his story about Snowmass Mountain. We arrived at a big turn in the road, and this was where we wished Steve good luck on his climb and left the road for Cirque.

At first, I thought that we had stayed on the road too long, because we had to lose a little elevation to get toward Cirque, but especially on the way back, it was easy to see that we had taken the best path. Any other choice would involve crossing delicate, marshy terrain for quite some ways. We crossed a small creek, and then headed for some grassy slopes. As we crossed over, I noticed our unique perspective on Gilpin Peak behind us. Having descended just the right amount, Gilpin appeared as a solitary mountain, an island rising up from the grasses. We reached the grassy slopes and started ascending steeply to reach the small basin between Kismet and Cirque. My legs felt dead as I climbed. They didn't have a whole lot of Day-2 energy in them, so Erin and I just kept a slow and steady pace going. Wildflowers filled these slopes with the kind of abundant color we saw in Yankee Boy and Governor Basins last year. Since this was more than a month earlier in the year than our last visit, however, only on these south-facing slopes had many flowers bloomed, as opposed to down by the road where there were few.

We entered the small basin and found a climbers trail leading to the saddle, and now that we were amidst talus, we heard some pika cries. I looked around for them quite a bit, but even though Erin kept on trying to help me, I never did spot one this time. Pikas are still my favorite alpine critter, and my love for them only grew after watching a segment from the BBC series, Life of Mammals. In that segment, David Attenborough clipped some plants and flowers and set them on a rock with a small camera nearby to keep an eye on things. Sure enough, a pika came by soon after to grab the free lunch. I have to try that someday, feeding the pikas! The show explained that many of the plants they retrieve for their haystacks are poisonous, but the poison serves as a natural preservative through the winter. The plants with the most poison are saved for late spring, just before the pikas are to be released from underneath the deep snows of winter. By this time the poison has broken down, and the plants are safe for the pikas to eat.

We gained the saddle, where we were very impressed by Kismet's precipitous north face, and Sneffels looked a lot prettier than it had from Teakettle yesterday. We noticed that a climber's trail heads up Kismet from here. Is this also the standard route for that peak? It appeared that Kismet's eastern summit could be reached without much trouble, but then things would get interesting! We ascended toward Cirque's western false summit, but happily the climber's trail skirted this summit on its north side. We reached another saddle and gained our first good look at Cirque's true summit. Meanwhile, the weather was starting to look weird, and we grew concerned for our friends on Dallas Peak, which we could just now see poking up from behind Kismet. One good sign was that, although they were dark and grey, the clouds blanketing the area were also very flat, definitely not of the thunderhead variety.

As we drew nearer to Cirque, we saw there was a small cliff band in the way, which was kind of a surprise. The rock was loose, and we took care on this brief section of class 2+ or maybe class 3 climbing. Once above, we continued on the trail toward the summit. Near the top, we lost the trail, and took a class 3 gully to the summit, but we found the easier way when we went back down. Our summit didn't look as tall as Cirque's spire of a false summit to the east. Were we in the right place? And if not, how do we get over there? That's a nasty looking notch! Fortunately there was a register here, placed by Kirk Mallory, that told us we were on the correct summit. The photos don't do it justice, but Teakettle looked astounding from here. This would be a great summit to return to for an evening climb if you had the right weather. Seeing Teakettle bathed in sunset glow from Cirque's summit would be outrageous!

We didn't tarry long with the weather looking so strange, and the descent back to the basin was uneventful, save for the beautiful views enhanced by the moody weather and flowers. Once we were back to the road, we talked with a couple who lived outside Lyons. They were good company, and they told us about some nice climbs in the Indian Peaks. They were really enjoying this trip to the San Juans. They said that since they got their dog, they don't get to come out to this side of Colorado as often.

Yankee Boy was a circus. People and cars everywhere, so it took longer than usual to get down to Ouray. Along the way, I caught a fleeting look at Mount Emma, which I had never noticed before. Back in town, Erin and I got showered and then drove on to Ridgway for some of Sandy's Sunshine Kitchen's incredible fried egg sandwiches. They put the eggs on incredible multigrain bread with thick-cut bacon, tomatoes, avocados, and cheese. While we ate, we were entertained by a guy playing a guitar, a high-hat, and a harmonica. He put on a pretty good show, playing some old folk and rock favorites. Sadly, Sandy's may not be for much longer. Erin's dad noticed a "For Sale" sign at the restaurant when he recently visited Ridgway with his family.

We called James, and we were surprised when he picked up. He was alone back in Telluride, so we told him we'd meet him there. While the rest of our group was likely to be successful, James said they had had a tough time with the dastardly Stan's Shortcut along the way to Dallas, which took a lot out of him. When they reached somewhere in the 11,000-foot range, James legs started to get wobbly, and he had to head back. If Erin and I had joined them and taken the physical pounding that Stan's Shortcut delivered, I suspect we would have turned around with him. Cirque Mountain was hard enough on me!

We met up with James, and we tooled around in Telluride until we got the call from Dwight. They had made Dallas, and would be in town soon! After a few unsuccessful attempts at finding a non-packed restaurant, we found the Floradora Saloon, where our hungry Dallas climbers inhaled their burgers. We arranged the plan for the next day. Erin and I didn't have our tent with us, so we would stay another night in Ouray and meet the group the next morning at their campsite in Lower Ice Lake Basin at 6:30 to join them for the approach to Vermilion, Dwight's final centennial!

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